Mexico

29 September 2017 | Isla Mujeres Mexico

Judy

We left Los Morros around 11 am, Magic Badger decided to join us for the crossing, it was a lovely sunny day, this would be around 18 hrs as it was 112 nm to Isla Mujeres. We were sailing most of the night, nothing eventful, except lots of cruise ship traffic, we did lost contact with our buddy boat but we could him him talking to a cruise ship, they were going a lot slower then us as they was having a heating problem. The next morning the wind dropped to 5 knots and we got hit with a 4 knot current, it was going to be a long long day. We encountered some thunder storms and more cruise ships, but the current was pushing us to Florida, so we fired up the iron jib, and spent the afternoon fighting it.

After several hours we realized we were gonna run out of fuel, we were 23 miles from Mexico, so So we put a call out to any boat traffic that may have fuel, a 600 ft tanker answered, she relayed our call to Cancun traffic, but came back and suggested that they would rendezvous with us and give us what we needed. The captain said he could slow down to 5 knots, and they would lower 3cans in a cargo net.
My captain said your on the helm matey I gotta get the cans, I took one look at that thing coming and did 2 shots of Tequila,my blood pressure was about to rise. They pulled up and I took a deep breathe and headed to her port side, the whole crew were out there cheering us on, first attempt the captain lost the boat hook in the net as I veered away. Got my wits about me and went in again, got the first can, they were quite heavy trying to get out of a flying net. But never backed off and got all three 5 gallon cans without any thing major going wrong. The crew hooted and hollered, the captain said keep the cans and have a nice journey. We ended up arriving in Isla Mujeres, around 7:30 pm and anchored out for the night, needless to say there was a few drinks involved. Magic Badger showed up 13 hrs later.

The following morning we took a slip at Marina Parasio and stayed here for a month while traveling back to Canada, to meet our first grand nice Mya Jane, our boys and friends. We had a lovely trip but did not get to go sailing and the weather was a bit cool. We arrived back to Isla Mujeres and decided to explore the island before heading further South. We had been to Isla before but only on day trips while we were vacationing in Cancun, We decided we would have to leave pretty soon as we had a berth booked at Nan Juana in the Rio Dolce, we said good bye to our friends on Magic Badger, they had hired crew to take there boat back to Canada.

We were back to sailing solo so we headed out for a 5 hr sail down the coast to Puerto Morrolos, at Marina El Cid, which also has a huge resort. Had a nice breeze sailed the whole way got settled into the marina and heard a loud noise which was the pin popping out of the main. We decided to hold up here a few days as we would have to get into town to get a repair pin for the boom. We managed to waggle 2 free days at the resort where we hung out lounging in the pool sipping cocktails and eating delicious Mexican Cuisine.

The captain went to bed that night with a bad case of heartburn, probalbly from all that spicy food. We were expecting customs to show up in the am with our clearance. But that was not to be had, got up the next morning Captain was still very ill told me to cancel Customs and call a doctor.

After several days in ICU from a near death experience, and several procedures, Andy was released feeling much better, I must say the hospital and staff here were phenomenal. In the meantime Robbie from SV Dana, helped me move the boat back to Marina led Sol, where he would rest for a few weeks.

But after a few days on board he started to feel unwell again, experiencing chest pain, so I got Robbie to call an ambulance and they took him into the local hospital, after checking him out the doctor decided he should go back to Cancun, but it was midnight and the ferry had stopped running. The doctor being quite concerned assured us he wasn't in immediate danger, but we needed to take precautions from another heart attack. So he contacted a local fisherman who was willing to take us across the channel. The doctor, nurse, and I held onto the gurney in the open fishing boat as we flew across to Cancun. The owner of the boat refused to take any money from me and said this is my island I'm here to help. It turned out he had an infection around his heart.

After another few days in the hospital and after many intense discussions we decided we were not going to Guatemala, that we would stay in Mexico for the season. We had some family come visit while the captain was recuperating, which was very nice, really enjoyed having them around for moral support. Once he was able to travel we headed back to Canada to see a cardiologist.